New Mexico has been known as the nation\u2019s late term abortion capital. It is no surprise, then, that their legislation allows for physician assisted suicide. Bill HB-171 (euphemistically called the \u201cElizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act\u201d) allows doctors to prescribe life-ending medication to patients they deem mentally competent and within six months of death. Patients then self-administer the drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When this bill was presented in 2021, many people\u2014including physicians and attorneys\u2014 gathered to offer their perspectives to our state\u2019s Health Committee reviewing the bill. As a pastor representing Bible-believing evangelical Christians, these were the remarks I prepared:[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n _____<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m here as a pastor from Desert Springs Church in Albuquerque. I also coordinate network of thirty pastors in our region. Representing these pastors and their churches, I stand in opposition to the End-of-Life Options Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I owe you three words this morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you to the NM House Health Committee for seeking to discern and serve the best interests of our state. To the physicians who are with us, thank you for caring for the sick. Tyler is my 39-year-old brother. After multiple open-heart surgeries, he contracted meningitis in the hospital at 18 months old. Today he is severely mentally handicapped. You are brilliant, you work hard for us, you deal frequently in difficult ambiguities, and we need you. Thank you. To those here who have suffered and are suffering, we grieve with you. Death is cruel. As a pastor, I\u2019ve seen it up close. This topic is not abstract to me or for any of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the committee, I owe you a second thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No doubt for some, support for this bill springs from a noble motive and moral imperative: compassion<\/em>. May we never tire of doing right from compassion. But it crosses a bright line that we shall not cross together, friends. Physicians should treat fellow human beings in the course of death. Physicians must never treat the suffering with death.<\/em> This line is clear, ancient, tested, needed, and unambiguous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A familiar verse in Scripture limits our choices in a compassionate way: \u201cYou shall not murder.\u201d Suicide is<\/em> self-murder. Assisted suicide\u2014however motivated\u2014is<\/em> a form of murder. Job\u2019s wife said to him, \u201ccurse God and die.\u201d He did not. Rather, he \u201cfear[ed] God and turn[ed] away from evil.\u201d We are not self-created and so we shall not self-destruct. We are not the origin of the life we possess, and we must not dispose ourselves of that life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God\u2019s command against murder stands on two pillars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given human nature, while this bill has a compassionate beginning, it fanciful to think this bill will serve only compassionate ends. As with any bill, we may consider the intentions of some who support the bill, but also the unintended consequences we can reasonably expect from this bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friends, this is a bad bill. Like a Trojan horse, its protections conceal its deadly logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pursue compassion, tirelessly! But, please, do not lead us into a partnership with death. Do not turn your head to the logic present in this bill and where it leads. Do not ask us to allow our doctors to prescribe deadly poison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life is theirs to heal if they can. It is not theirs to take if they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are suffering, I welcome you to come into our churches; come to my church, and see how we love one another. See how we care for our sick, our elderly, our deformed, our orphans and widows, the poor, the weak. Let us love you. You are not a burden. Your life, every moment you have, is a blessing for us and a sacred trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you care for the suffering, I welcome you to send them to our churches. We have an answer for hopelessness. A man walked through our door 18 months ago with terminal cancer. We helped him get right with people. More importantly we heled him get right with his Maker. He died a painful, terrible dead. I was there. It was also an honorable and dignified death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We don\u2019t help people die. We help people die well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, send us your suffering. We have something to offer them\u2014we have Someone<\/em> to offer them; a savior who suffered affliction and death; our great physician, who mends our souls even as our minds and bodies fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With dropping blood pressure, Tyler was taken from his nursing home to the ICU. A state away, my mom arrived five hours later. She had been through this before. But this time, when she arrived, no ordinary care was underway. Why not? Because Tyler had \u201cdo-not-resuscitate\u201d orders. Which they translated into do-not-treat<\/em> orders. Here are the words my mom\u2014Tyler\u2019s mom\u2014heard when she arrived: \u201cyou have some decisions to make, ma\u2019am. Think about the quality of his life.\u201d Yet, they hadn\u2019t taken the first step toward a diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After several days, Tyler was sent home on hospice to die a painful death. That was ten years ago, and he\u2019s with us today. It was a mistake\u2014a misdiagnosis. It was also a familiar experience. Tyler contracted meningitis as a baby because of a doctor\u2019s mistake. We have never held it against the doctor. Medical professionals are marvelous human beings. And like all human beings they are finite, and they are fallen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A vote for this bill is a vote for its logic. And the logic of this bill has my brother in its crosshairs. No, this bill will not permit a prescription for my brother Tyler. But its logic, in due time, will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Death is an enemy. It is not an \u201coption.\u201d We reject The End-of-Life Options Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I delivered these remarks in 2017, and in that time much has changed. On a personal level, my brother Tyler passed away, and I have moved into a season of life in which I am caring for aging family members. This issue has become acute for me in new ways. On the national level, as of January 2024 there are eleven states\/districts (including New Mexico) in which assisted suicide is legal<\/a> (CA, CO, DC, HI, ME, MT, NJ, NM, OR, VT, & WA). While two of these states (MT & NJ) are considering overturning their assisted suicide laws, six more were considering legalization in the 2024 legislative session (DE<\/a>, IL<\/a>, IN<\/a>, MO<\/a>, NH<\/a>, & NY<\/a>).[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In many of these cases, the political left has prepared groundwork for months or years, busing people in from out of state and rehearsing their remarks for maximal persuasiveness. Conservatives, however, have been caught flat-footed, disorganized, and unprepared. That was my experience on the day I delivered these remarks. There were dozens if not hundreds present in favor of the bill with a line of prepared and emotionally intense testimonies. Against the bill there were only a small number of us. The current situation is dire; as Christians we must stand up for life, educate one another, and work together<\/a> to rebuff efforts to legalize murder in our nation and our states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, all legislation is theological application<\/em>. Everyone has a theology; the only questions are what that theology is and how it is applied. If Christian theology is kept separate from the political sphere, then demonic theology which seeks to overthrow God and destroy his image will rule in its place. This is not to say that church and state are the same, that the church should rule the state, or that God\u2019s special requirements for his covenant people should be imposed on the entire nation. Nonetheless, because all legislation is theological application, we must make every effort to apply Christian<\/em> theology, in an appropriate manner, to the legislative and political issues of our day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n May God grant us courage and fortitude to stand on his truth, rightly stewarding the authority He has given each of us in our Constitutional Democratic Republic, for His glory and for the flourishing of His image bearers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Physicians must never treat suffering with death. Assisted suicide\u2014however motivated\u2014is a form of murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Physicians must never treat suffering with death. Assisted suicide\u2014however motivated\u2014is a form of murder.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,12,1967,38],"tags":[90,956,2004,653,823,716,925,1280,301,1979,717,319,122],"scripture-reference":[1038,1037],"post_folder":[],"ppma_author":[23],"class_list":["post-18081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-concise","category-january-2025-theme","category-theme","tag-abortion","tag-anthropology","tag-assisted-suicide","tag-body","tag-christ","tag-death","tag-evangelicals","tag-humanity","tag-image-of-god","tag-imago-dei","tag-life","tag-murder","tag-theology","scripture-reference-ch-1-genesis","scripture-reference-genesis"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Trent-Hunter-Assisted-Suicide-Article-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-01-13 11:49:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":23,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"trent-hunter","display_name":"Trent Hunter","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/trent-hunter.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/trent-hunter.jpg"},"author_category":"","job_title":"","church_city_state":"","last_name":"Hunter","first_name":"Trent","church_site":"","user_url":"http:\/\/www.trenthunter.net\/","description":"Trent Hunter<\/b><\/a> is the pastor for preaching and teaching at Heritage Bible Church<\/a> in Greer, South Carolina. Trent is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Graphical Greek<\/i>, an electronic reference guide for biblical Greek, Joshua<\/i> in Crossway's Knowing the Bible series, and is co-author of Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ<\/I>. Trent is an Instructor for the Charles Simeon Trust Workshops on Biblical Exposition."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18081"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18270,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18081\/revisions\/18270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18081"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-reference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-reference?post=18081"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=18081"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Time at the mic did not allow this full testimony. Thus, what is written below is an expanded version of my initial comments.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
I Owe You a Word of Thanks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I Owe You a Word of Truth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
2. Time at the mic did not allow this full testimony. Thus, what is written below is an expanded version of my initial comments.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
I Owe You a Word of Welcome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Finally, a Word about Tyler<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The State of the Issue Today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3. If you live in one of these states, consider contacting your local state assembly member to keep this legislation from passing.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Editor\u2019s Note: This article <\/em>originally appeared<\/em><\/a> at the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention, and is used here with permission of the ERLC and the author.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"